PCB Milling Advise

[Flyer66]

Hi all,

New Year, new project...
I'm into building a very small (200x150mm routing area) milling pcb router gathering as much scrap I have at home as possible, just for fun...

What i have at home so far:

Old Printer Stepper motors, I know thay have little torque but I guess they will do, because its a very small piece.

1mm lead screw, it will be a very slow machine but i guess this way will have some precision.

Kitchen drawers sliders:
Here I think they will do because the travel will be so little that they wont bend al all. I think that bearing will add a lot of weigth and its not good for the step motors.

The advise I need is from those who have already tried this kind of material, if this is not suitable at all, I've look in a lot of posts and the projects were to big for me to use, some of them are real pro solutions, not my purpose.

I'm going to start with the mechanical parts but the rail guide solution will influence the all project, and I will try to use the KIS(S) aproach.

Any advise?
Happy new year to all

[neilw20]

Remember when mounting the sliders, all the abrasive glass stuff you get from the PCB. Ensure there is a way to keep the slides clean.
It easy to make a moving table with the slides flat, but the slides will always get clogged.

[Flyer66]

Thx for your reply
I haven't thouth of that, clogged slides...there is a potencial problem specialy if they are lubricated.
got to figure a solution in my design.

once more thx.

[Jay C]

I've mentioned this design before: Mantis 9.1 CNC Mill - Make Your Bot! I've never tried it myself though.

[EllArr]

I haven't tried the Mantis either, but TrackHacker.com has put up a build log with some pretty good information. They have a complete bill of materials (info on the Mantis site is only a subset of what is really needed) as well as a list of problems they ran into with the design.

TrackerHacker is also coming out with their own design to get around some of the issues they had while building the Mantis.